Piyush Patel - Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work: An Entrepreneurs Guide to Creating a Culture that Matters

What if you could peek inside the playbook of a championship sports team to see how they did it? Thats what it feels like as you read Lead Your Tribe. A talented entrepreneur, Piyush shows his true gift as a great teacher by sharing his journey. With clever wit and a knack for storytelling, he illustrates firsthand how he built an exceptional culture. I was fortunate to spend some time with the team he built and can attest to their special bond. His formula clearly works.

Mark C. Winters, co-author of Rocket Fuel

When we started implementing these principles into our company, I saw productivity and morale increase dramatically. This book shows you how to build a better companyand a better lifeby cultivating an atmosphere of communication.

Kyle Green, Director of Film & Games Curriculum, Pluralsight

How you interact with your staff drives your culture. Piyush has outlined the rules you need to follow to turn your business into a culture of excellence. The information in Lead Your Tribe changed the way I conduct business on a day-to-day basis. We all want a great culture and this book shows you how to build it.

Dr. Justin Scott, Founder, Pure Dental Health

5828 NW 135th St, Suite B

Oklahoma City, OK 73142

www.dreambigimprint.com

The names and identifying characteristics of some of the individuals featured throughout this book have been changed to protect their privacy. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2017 Piyush Patel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to

Book Jacket Design by Stephen Treadwell and Monkey C Media

Book Interior Design by Monkey C Media

Illustrations by Stephen Treadwell

Author Photo by Amy Gray

Printed in the United States of America

First edition

ISBN: 978-0-9986465-0-3 (hard cover)

978-0-9986465-1-0 (trade paperback)

978-0-9986465-2-7 (eBook)

978-0-9986465-3-4 (ePub)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017904940

TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF DIGITAL-TUTORS

Thank you for the gift of being your leader. Your creativity and craftsmanship continue to humble me.

DEREK AND DAN

Thank you for making this project a reality.

LISA

My wife, business partner, best friend, and pen pal:
thank you for trusting me and letting me drive the bus.

W ell, shit.

I was only three years into what shouldve been the greatest entrepreneurial adventure of my life, and that was my conclusion.

I was screwed.

Damnwhat have I gotten myself into?! It didnt take long for my life to get turned upside down. I guess thats nothing new for anyone whos quit their job, started a company, had a child, and moved to Oklahoma City, all inside of a few months.

It started when I was granted tenure as a college professor teaching digital animation less than a year after Nick was born. My immigrant parents were thrilled. My dads voice echoed in my head, Youve got a government job. Youll get a pension. Youre set forever!

For the record, receiving tenure was something Id worked hard to achieve and was a career goal. The reality was not the dream Id imagined, though. I struggled to pay the bills. I struggled to support my growing family. I struggled to find joy in the job I used to love. Receiving tenure should have been cause for celebration, but it seemed like a punch in the gut. Was this what the rest of my life would be like? I didnt know what the future held, but I knew something had to change.

So I jumped. One month after tenure, I quit my job and decided to work full-time on my company, Digital-Tutors, which Id started only a few months earlier selling digital animation courses on CDs.

When my parents found out what Id done, they were in shock. I can still hear my dads initial reaction like it was yesterday: What did you do?

Seriously: what had we done?

Lisa, my wife, played a vital role in the new business, keeping the books and the paperwork. Two of my colleagues and closest friends, Kevin and Tina, also made the leap with us.

At first, everything went well. Even better than I couldve hoped. I loved being in charge of my own works destiny. I loved working with my wife and two of my best friends. I didnt mind the sixteen-hour days. I loved the adventure of being in business for myself, solving a need, and the affirmation that came with it.

As we grew, work increased and we brought on more great employees. I loved it so much that I didnt even notice when things at the office began to change.

Somewhere along the way, working those sixteen-hour days went from energizing to draining. I was stuck in the weeds and spent my days putting out fires. I hated the feeling of a noose around my neck. I hated trying to make ends meet and always worrying about meeting payroll. I began to hate going into the office. When I left my teaching position, it was a conscious decision. It was a tough choice Lisa and I had made together, but its one I remember making. This was different. I couldnt point to a single decision as the trigger. The first few years of hard work getting Digital-Tutors off the ground all seemed to blur. Suddenly, I realized I was in way over my head. I had a lease on office space, vendors, insurance, and healthcare, not to mention the paychecks on which other people depended to support their families and pay their own mortgages.

I loved being in charge of my own destiny.

As I reflected on how Id gone from being a new father to becoming a tenured professor to starting my own company, it hit me: What have I gotten myself into?!

If you are reading this book, Im sure youve had this feeling, too.

I couldnt just close up shop, lock the doors, and go home. What would I do? Go back to teaching? What would our employees do? They had believed in us, and had staked their careers on our vision. What about our customers who had come to depend on Digital-Tutors to refine the animation skills they needed to improve their own livelihoods? Id already left the station at what was now a runaway train. I couldnt just hop off. I found myself trapped in a prison of my own making.

MY WAKE-UP CALL

Backed into a corner, I started looking anywhere I could for a way out. As often happens, I found it where I least expected: during a presentation I attended about company structure and governance. One line on a PowerPoint slide changed the course of my company and my life: What are your company values? I stared at it. When I thought of values, the first thing that came to mind was some form of motivational poster. You know what Im talking about. They hang on the walls of corporate America. The passage of time slowly transforms them from a decoration to something no one notices as they walk by. But it bothered me that I couldnt answer the question for my company. Digital-Tutors was making money, but I was miserable, putting on weight, and growing more depressed each day. Could this be the first step to a solution? As the seminar continued, I kept turning that question over in my mind. What were our company values? What did our company stand for? What were my own values? What did Lisa and I stand for?